


A Rapture Orange

by Machiner6



Category: A Clockwork Orange (1971), BioShock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6330304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Machiner6/pseuds/Machiner6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate timeline where World War II led to the dystopia seen in A Clockwork Orange, based on the Kubrick adaptation, Alex DeLarge and his droogs flee to the city of Rapture, thinking they can commit their "ultraviolence" and get away with it for always, but one throws ADAM and hi-tech gadgets into the mix, and Sander Cohen pulls some of the strings...their expectations might not be accurately met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Dystopia to Another

It was 1953, after World War II. England had grown terribly bleak, drab, and dry after the countless German military attacks. Given how long it would have taken for the country to recover, crime was loose like a disease, and the government couldn’t do anything about it, instead concerned as to how much money and food was still around, thus leaving vagrants and delinquents roaming like animals. Four particular delinquents, each well-mannered yet unpredictable, had decided to leave England after the bombing, wanting someplace safer to live. On the phone, their leader, Alex DeLarge, had explained that he and his 3 Droogs were looking for jobs. And as it happened, there was one place, so far away from any other country, it had to be paradise. The newspapers had spread rumors of disappearances and kidnappings, but they paid those tattered rags no mind. All that mattered to Alex’s gang was one single word, repeating over and over: Rapture.  
At Newhaven port, the white-dressed comrades were preparing to board a special boat, bound for Rapture’s iconic lighthouse. It was night, no crimes had been committed as of yet, but Alex had a master plan to spring once they got there. Georgie was skeptical, thinking that an underwater city might have even tighter police forces than Scotland Yard here. Dim was excited about what he might see in said underwater city, although he was just going along with what Pete said.  
While the fish trawler purred away from Newhaven, Captain James Polito brewed up some tea and biscuits in the galley, while his first mate, Dean Bronson manned the wheel. Within the hours it would take to reach the distant lighthouse, the group sat around a table in the cabin and had a good chat with the captain.  
With a sip of his tea, he spoke first in a thick Cockney accent, “Well, ain’t you people quite a funny-looking bunch? Where’d you get those fancy clothes an’ ‘ats from, eh?”  
Alex chose his words carefully, “Oh, I had some cutter left over from me last yob. Didn’t care for the regular old platties back home; and then me Droogs wanted in.”  
“Yes, yes, that’s what we did!” Dim laughingly agreed.  
“Right,” the captain rolled his eyes slightly. “And you says you be looking for work in Rapture?”  
Georgie cut in, “That’s right, me brother. There ain’t nowhere left in ol’ England to work at! We can’t barely scratch up more than a teensy bit of cutter these days, at all!”  
“I will say, Captain: where we came from, quite oddy-knocky, it waz.” Pete added.  
Captain Polito shook his head, stood up, and finished the conversation, “Sorry, mates, but that bafflin’ language of yours is twistin’ me head.” Thinking about the unanswered question, he reached into his coat and placed a card on the table. “Here, I was asked to give you this.”  
Alex picked it up and read it slowly to the others, “To all arriving parties, I promise that Rapture will be better than anything you’ve seen before; Hope to meet you in the flesh. --Andrew Ryan.”  
Dim asked out of curiosity, “Do you think we’ve... razdrezed the captain?”  
“I don’t know, I hopes otherwise,” Pete shrugged.  
“What do you suppose he thinks uf us? Does he know?” Georgie asked in worry.  
“Best not to think of that yet, oh my brother; we’ll get that Pretty Polly, one way or another,” Alex stated with a sinister glare in his eyes. Yet as cultured as he was, Mr. DeLarge was never one to burst into fits of maniacal laughter.

\-----

It was around 00:43 when the boat pulled up to the lighthouse. When they stepped off and climbed the stairs, Alex was all but stunned at the craftsmanship that went into the structure. Georgie and Pete couldn’t take their eyes off it either. Dim was distracted by the ocean around them, lacking any sort of land for miles in any direction. But their gazing was interrupted by the sound of Captain Polito unlocking the main entrance. Two burly men were hauling a cart loaded with the guests’ luggage, and just managed to squeeze it all in before the doors slammed shut.  
For a moment, the lights were dark, but in seconds they flashed to life just as the doors slammed shut, accompanied by a violin cover of “Beyond the Sea” playing over the intercom.  
Alex was further shocked by the giant bust of Andrew Ryan. Whoever sculpted this thing clearly had the expression wrong. It looked menacing, threatening, like the kind that would hide themselves from any sort of evidence against them back in England.  
But Alex shook his head, and tried to tell himself that wasn’t true. His droogs didn’t notice the slight fear in his eyes. Georgie was transfixed on a huge banner that read, “No Gods or Kings, only Man.”  
Captain Polito and his mate beckoned the 4 men though a dim tunnel which also lit up as they entered. Was it the new motion sensor devices that did this?  
Finally, the six men stepped inside a large spherical vessel sitting in a pool of water.  
“Go on, then, take yer seats,” Captain Polito asked as politely as he could. As the gang did, First Mate Bronson yanked on a lever in the center of the craft, and they watched it descend into the cold, murky depths of the ocean by dozens of fathoms. But the spectacle was interrupted by a small projector firing up and a screen deploying in front of the door.  
“Ah, a little piece of ciné for our troubles?” Alex smirked.  
The film reel whirred into motion, sound and all, while a new voice began speaking. “I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?” As Ryan spoke, frightening images of overblown versions of various political entities flashed on-screen, as if they were something to dread. “‘No,’ says the man in Washington, ‘it belongs to the poor.’ ‘No,’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘it belongs to God!’ ‘No,’ says the man in Moscow, ‘it belongs to everyone!’”  
Alex’s crew smiled and laughed at this Andrew Ryan’s claims, almost thinking the same exact thing about the country they’d left; with a government that would go so far as to strip a man of their free will, so Alex once heard from his Pee and Em. Enthusiastic, they listened on while the screen dropped back down and the projector clicked off.  
Andrew Ryan continued, “I rejected those answers! Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible! I chose...” he paused in great suspense as the bathysphere rounded a huge boulder to reveal... “Rapture! A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small!”  
“Yes, yes, yes!” Alex and Georgie were both thinking. The potential for getting to do whatever they pleased in this city was their dream come true!  
“And with the sweat of your brow,” Ryan finished, “Rapture can become your city, as well.”  
Ecstatic for what was to come next, the droogs watched as the sphere swerved into a tunnel lit with words in bright neon, “All good things of this earth flow into the city.” Finally, the craft rose up through a moon pool and came to a halt at a docking station where several men and women wearing expensive clothes were waiting, as the cargo was unloaded from a second sphere behind them.  
As the door hissed open, Alex’s crew followed behind the captain, who turned to one of the executive people and shook his hand, saying, “These are me passengers, sir.”  
“Very good, Mr. Polito. We’ll take it from here,” an Afro-American agent replied with the handshake.  
“Thank you, sir. I’ll leave you to it,” he paused, looking side to side for a moment, then whispered in his ear, “Keep an eye on these blokes, would you? Some bizarre language to their mouths, they’ve got.”  
The other man just nodded, then as the captain and his mate walked back into the sphere to return to their boat, topside, that man turned to Alex’s group and addressed them, “Welcome, welcome to Rapture. My name is Timothy Van Meyers, and I’m here to show you around. Arrangements have already been made for the four of you in Mercury suites, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot more to see before bed time comes round.”  
“Indeed there will be, my brother,” Alex nodded with a large grin, “We’re all looking forward to somethin’ real horrorshow.”  
“Oh, you into horror? Well, we have that, too.”  
Georgie was about to say something, but Mr. Van Meyers beckoned, “Come along, we can talk more on the way.”  
The quartet stepped calmly yet cautiously across the single corridor. Pete glanced at a timetable overhead, finding that these spheres were a form of public transit.  
As they entered a lounge room with a heavy iron door, some stairs lined with posters and a large glass window, Mr. Van Meyers stepped over to a kiosk and pulled out some pamphlets for his four guests. He explained with a smile, “Rapture has so much to offer someone new, make no mistake. Therefore, it’s been arranged that you get to choose where to go for the evening, before we show you your new homes.”  
“How Choodessny!” Alex smirked. He turned about to face his companions, and asked them, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, my little droogies?”  
Dim, missing the catch, asked, “Uh, what you thinking exactly?”  
“Casinos! Theaters! Shops!” Georgie exclaimed!  
“Perhaps, this night will be longy indeed.”  
Mr. Van Meyers was a little surprised at this chit-chat between these men, but his thoughts were interrupted when Alex whipped back around and asked him, “Sir, we was viddying for some well-paying jobs.”  
“Yes, that’s what I was told. But again, it’s up to you where to go this evening. Remember, there’s only one spot for now, so choose wisely,” the dark agent warned.  
Looking at the map of Rapture in his pamphlet, one of the locations caught his eye. “Fort Frolic”, it was called, highlighted in purple. And at the bottom in the map’s legend, the features of that location included around two dozen shops, including bars, clubs, casinos, and stores. Figuring that a simple job might be available there, he looked back up at the agent and answered, “Hows about, Fort Frolic, brother?”  
“Ah, yes, many of our clients love that part of Rapture. As a matter of fact, Sander Cohen just recently opened a new shop there, calls it the Rhea Milk Bar, I heard.”  
That rang a bell in the whole group’s minds. Was there a version of the Korova, down here in the depths of the ocean? The place they always loved to visit every other evening? If that was the case, then it was another reason to go.  
Just before Mr. Van Meyers unlocked the bulkhead, Georgie asked to look upstairs at something, after hearing a girl’s voice call out, “My daddy’s smarter than Einstein! Stronger than Hercules! And lights a fire with a snap of his finger! Are you as good as my daddy, mister? Not if you don’t visit the Gatherer’s Garden, you aren’t! Smart daddies get spliced at the Garden!”  
He glanced at what looked like some kind of vending machine marked, “Gatherer’s Garden”, like the recording said, except instead of a coin slot, this machine only accepted some kind of liquid, judging from the funnel where it would be. And whatever was dispensed here didn’t look like drinks, seemed more like oversized drug bottles. Neither Georgie nor his friends were strangers to drugs, but this was a very curious means of purchasing them.  
As he saw the door rumble open, Georgie rejoined his droogs, passing two people just gavoreeting at a table with some cigarettes, Georgie asked what the Gatherer’s Garden was all about.  
Mr. Van Meyers answered, “Oh, that’s one of them new things hitting big here. Yes, you need what’s called ‘ADAM’ to make that machine give what you want. It’s very hard to come by these days, but if you have some, your reward is more valuable than any money in the world, and don’t you forget it.”  
“What is this reward, my brother?” Alex asked out of further curiosity as they stepped into an elevator, going up.  
“Mr. Frank Fontaine made ‘em, calls them Plasmids. These chemicals that give you...for lack of a better word, superpowers; Fire, electricity, tornadoes, you name it,” Van Meyers nonchalantly explained.  
That struck an interesting idea in Alex’s mind, but he filed it for later.  
“Sadly, I’ve heard these miracle serums aren’t working like they should be. Everyone who tries them after a few months in succession ends up mutated. And the stuff seems to be more addictive than any drug you’d find on the surface. Fontaine’s trying to find a cure.”  
Alex filed that, too, as they entered a second Rapture Metro station. Heading for the sphere, Mr. Van Buren finished, “But let’s not worry about such bad news. It’d spoil your night!”  
“My thoughts exactly, brother,” Alex nodded while his agent programmed the sphere to head for Fort Frolic.

\-----

As the bathysphere hissed open and the traveling crew waded into this section of town, Mr. Van Meyers stopped his guests at the front gate to show them a security booth, “Hang on, my friends. I forgot to mention that you’ll all need proper identification to go anywhere in Rapture.”  
The droogs were all shocked by this statement, but their agent added, “It’s nothing too important, just a safety measure.”  
Then Van Meyers spoke with a security officer, who then asked Alex’s group to hold out their hands. Each of them had to prick a finger to register their blood in the genetic security database, and then have their pictures taken in a side room for ID cards with flasher spots to show to the cameras every so often.  
Next, with their cards and blood in place, Alex asked his droogs to hand over their money, and with his with own; he placed the stack of Pound Sterling before the guard and asked if it needed conversion. The guard nodded, and carefully replaced it with around 40 Rapture-dollars total. Finally, the converted cash was returned to Alex and his crew, then all 4 gentlemen trudged into Fort Frolic proper.  
Van Meyers checked in on a radio for a second, then explained, “Ah, I think Sander Cohen is expecting you people. Today must be your lucky day!”  
“I sure hopes so,” Pete nodded.  
“He says that he’s waiting for you in the Milk Bar. That just so happens to be right around the corner!”  
Van Meyers led his guests into the octagonal atrium of Fort Frolic. Looking off to a sign above a door in one of the walls, reading “Rhea Milk Bar” in bright neon, Alex stopped for a moment at a small wheeled booth marked “Accu-Voxes!”  
A peppy salesman in a cheap-looking vest and tie spoke up, “Hello there, sir! Would you like a free Accu-Vox voice recorder? Every newcomer gets one this week, and a deal like this is very rare in Rapture!”  
Thinking over what he could do, Alex smiled and replied, “Sure, but could you tell me where I might buy some actual music? I fancied the old Ludwig Van on the surface, you know.”  
“Absolutely, sir. Rapture Records has all sorts of albums. It’s in Poseideon Plaza, second floor, second on your left; just ask Silias Cobb. He runs the place.”  
“Thankies, my brother. Viddy you around,” Mr. DeLarge affirmed while taking the boxed recorder and holding it near his waist.  
Joining his droogs and the travel agent as they walked towards the brightly lit shop, memories came flooding through his mind like the beverages he hoped were served here. So much, that he decided to describe them on tape a little later. Just before he entered the bar, he saw a placard nearby that read: “Grand Opening! Serving 100% fresh Calci-O milk substitute! ($1/cup) and Fontaine Milk Plus™ ($2/cup)!”  
The last lines struck more very familiar chords with Alex, like the way his favorite songs would cause all the hairs on his plott to stand endwise. Kind of sad that this wasn’t real milk, but given the city’s location, he understood why.  
His Droogs had already taken their seats, glasses in hand, at the back, while some groups of sophistos had occupied the front two benches. As nostalgic as the place was, it wasn’t quite the same as the Korova in old England. For one thing, the tables were simply tables, rather than statues of women. Instead of the curvy lettering and erotic arrangement of lightbulbs, there were murals of farmland, greek myths, and some thick glass windows in the ceiling giving a view of the ocean outside.  
Noticing a jukebox in the corner by the door, apparently designed for free selection, Alex perused the songs available before sitting down. While there was no section for classical songs - “for shame!” he thought; Alex settled on Gene Kelley’s “Singing in the Rain”, which at least brought back his smirk over more nostalgia.  
Next, Alex stepped over to a machine next to his droogs’ seat, almost exactly like what he saw in the Korova. A crouched statue of a beautiful woman, coated in what looked like thick plastic, stood over an art-deco apparatus with tubes running from the base, up to the statue’s legs. Near the front of the machine were five buttons and a couple of slots for bills or coins. Looking very closely, the labels of each button read: “Milk”, “Milk Plus Camouflage”, “Milk Plus SportBoost”, and “Milk Plus Bloodlust” – along with a blank one reading “Coming soon!”. Grabbing a long, flute-like plastic cup from one side, Alex slipped in $2, pushed the fourth button, and found a lever in the top center of the apparatus directly below the statue. Giving it a squeeze, Alex’s selected beverage began to flow out of a tap right where one of the statue’s nipples would be. “Oh yes,” he thought. “Just like then.”  
Despite his concern as to what fake milk would taste like along with whatever these “Gene Tonics” were that laced this one in particular, like the time before he ever tasted alcohol, Mr. DeLarge finally sat down, between Dim and Georgie, just like before.  
“About bloody time you got here, o my brother,” Dim scoffed.  
“Come now, Dim. Can’t a fellow get some time to relive his own past?” Alex laughed. “Pardon me.”  
Alex placed his boxed recorder on the table, opened it up, and stuck the machine just close enough for his hand to reach its buttons. First, he stared into his glass of synthetic milk, smelled it – whiffing up a strange cocktail of smells, ranging from regular milk, to something you’d find in a Bloody Mary, with a touch of fruit. Next, he gave it a sip, feeling the odd beverage slither down his throat. Surprisingly, he found it to taste almost exactly like milk, save for a faint bitter aftertaste. He couldn’t quite remember if the Korova’s “Milk Plus” tasted like this, but it mattered naught at this point.  
Then, as Alex downed some more of the weird beverage, the other Droogs caught sight of someone in an expensive black tuxedo and what Georgie surmised to be either a very thick coat of makeup, or a white mask like he remembered once wearing on the surface during their...outings.  
The man stepped close to the table, leaned forward a bit, and remarked, “My, my, what a lovely bunch of butterflies you are!”  
Alex put down his drink and asked, puzzledly, “Excuse me?”  
“Who be you?” Georgie asked bluntly.  
“Why, the one and only Sander Cohen, of course. And you?”  
“Alex...Alex DeLarge, sir. And with me be my three Droogs; Pete, Georgie, and Dim.”  
Cohen reached out to shake Alex’s hand, whom obliged politely. Cohen answered, “I hear you are looking for work, and from your...elegant choice of fashion, I’d say you have come to the right man!”  
“Oh? And what sort of yob you be offerin, my brother?” Alyx coyly inquired.  
“As a matter of fact, I’m looking for some people to help out my new shows. Actors, you see. Do you know how to dance?”  
“He does, Alex,” Georgie suggested.  
“Good, that’s a start,” Cohen smiled, although it was hard to tell with that stiff white face of is.  
“How much cutter...um, how much can we be paid for it?”  
“Name your price, Rapture loves me,” He leaned even closer to Mr. DeLarge’s face. “I can pay you in more than just money!”  
The gang’s face sparkled with glee, and they whispered to each other for a few seconds, until finally, Alex answered, “Seven-hundred dollars, each!”  
“Done, just follow me to the Fleet Hall, and I’ll show you how to be part of the greatest show on Earth!”


	2. Bermuda Love Triangle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex and his Droogs are hired by Sander Cohen, and just in time to star in a play he wrote. However, the idea that censorship is a sanction of the Parasite is so new to Alex, it really redefines the word "Ultraviolence".

With that, Sander Cohen and his new potential employees strutted upstairs to the fleet hall, past the bar and concession stand, to the staff entrance. Inside, four men were waiting, already in costume themselves, and one of them with crossed arms.  
“Oh yes, say hello to my fellow disciples,” Cohen introduced the men slowly, “Martin Finnegan, Hector Rodriguez, Silias Cobb, and Kyle Fitzpatrick.”  
They all said their hellos, then Finnegan commented, “That’s some damn kooky-looking fellows you picked up.”  
“Fret not, Martin. I was about to show them their new outfits!” the leader argued.  
“So, what sort of show you be castin’ us in, eh?” Alex asked with curiosity.  
“As a matter of fact, I just finished writing it. It’s a musical called: ‘Bermuda Love Triangle’. I think you’ll find it much more entertaining than whatever cheap entertainment roamed the surface crowd!”  
Yet again, Mr. DeLarge felt his senses sparkle with excitement. Would there be girls to dance with on stage? He rubbed his hands together in excitement, then he and his droogs proceeded to shed their ravish outfits for the play’s proper costumes.  
Later that evening, the curtains rose as the show began in a flare of light and applause. The first act cast Alex as the sly, rich dancer Edwin, who fancied a night with a beautiful woman named Marie. He took her to a dance almost as fast as she’d managed to notice him, and when they danced, the spectacle of the act was so livid, the people in attendance there were wowed by how well Alex performed with only hours’ worth of rehearsal. Then came the second Act, where another, poorer man named David, played by Georgie, wanted to go out with Marie as well, but she rejected him in favor of Edwin. Having none of it, David snuck into Edwin’s room while he was sleeping and tried to stab him with a knife, but Edwin thought fast and tripped him with his cane before David could even get close. Marie, meanwhile, was a little unsure if she really, truly liked Edwin, for the dance, thrilling though it was, left her senses a little rattled. The next day, Edwin politely asked to see her at his house, saying he wanted to give her the ‘full experience’. Still unsure, she went there. This time, he asked to get in bed with her, so that “we could know each other more closely”. She accepted, knowing that whatever the case may be, Edwin was still quite a handsome fellow. Alarmingly, without any kind of censorship because of Rapture’s rejection of that sort of morality, Alex proceeded to have real, unprotected sex with this actress, on stage, in front of possibly two dozen people. He only didn’t notice because of how good the act felt to both of them. When it was over, and Alex managed to look up, Marie was gone, and the curtain dropped with a placard reading “INTERMISSION”. After that session, Alex needed a shower to clean himself off – even if having already had one before showtime. Finally, Act Three came along, in which Edwin and David met in an alleyway to discuss their own right to have Marie, which led to a fistfight between the two. Alex felt a mix of both excitement and shock at this part, as though it was only acted – both knew that Cohen had said his actors shouldn’t try to hurt themselves, it felt like those violent outings they had on the surface against Billy Boy and the various victims they attacked. Stranger still, he felt a strange sense of pleasure during the fight, as if each blow he dealt to Georgie revitalized a bit of his stamina. The name “Bloodlust” from the Milk Bar kept ringing in his thoughts; he felt driven to make each strike harder than the last, but he only held back because this was part of the act. Nonetheless, during the scene, Edwin got the advantage and, in compliance with their script, David went down when his foe struck him in the chest with a knife, stating like a cold assassin, “Marie deserves me, but you won’t know that.”  
When Marie came home, Edwin had been waiting at her front door, saying that David was dead and that he was all hers. Marie’s feelings were mixed, thinking over how this relationship between two people was proceeding. Realizing it was nothing but futile, finally she told him to get out. She said she wasn’t anyone’s tool, she would marry whoever she wanted at her choosing, not someone else’s.  
Edwin didn’t sleep well that night. It wasn’t fair. All this time, nothing mattered but Marie. And at that moment, he muttered, “If I can’t have her, no one can.”  
The climax of the film ended when Edwin used his dagger to slice the woman’s throat in her sleep, and finally, in a vein of hari-kari, Edwin stabbed himself. Bermuda Love Triangle, a tragedy indeed.

\-----

It was 03:15 by the time the play was over, and unexpectedly, all four members of Alex’s troupe were immediately paid in advance. Cohen explained to them that he’d sent a package for each of them to their apartments, thanks to the fast pneumo system.  
Wearing fresh, albeit expensive white suits alongside their old hats, Alex quietly explained to his companions that tomorrow was the time to put their plan into action. First thing in the morning, or whatever time they woke up, it would be time to get ready for a bit of the old “ultraviolence”.  
As Alex made one more stop before returning to the sphere to Olympus Heights where his apartment was, he strolled into Rapture Records in Posiedon Plaza to pick up a vinyl or two. Perusing the selections there, Alex was thrilled to find exactly what he was looking for: A copy of Beethoven’s 9th, with some other symphonies on the B-side for good measure. He remembered once having a copy of his own, but it ended up scratched by his own fault at home, so this was a great replacement. Feeling a little frugal, Alex also picked an album from the Ink Spots, thinking he didn’t have time to savor the local bands on the surface. All together the purchase was about $15 total. For some reason, the owner at the counter, Silias Cobb gave him a strange look. He commented, in his thick Southern drawl, “Hey, I know you. Alex, wassit?”  
“That’s right, sir.”  
Trying to be calm and keep his thoughts to himself, Cobb continued, “Uh, where didya come from, up there on the surface?”  
“Can’t say much, just that those ruddy Germans, a real number on ol’ England, they did. Left nothin’ to go home to.”  
“You sure? Cause those clothes you had didn’t look cheap, to me.”  
Alex looked at his pocketwatch, then, collecting the two records in a shopping bag, stated, “Sorry, o my brother, but I best be off to Zasnoot. Need it badly, I do.”  
Deciding not to waste any more time, and feeling the heavy weight of his eyelids, not to mention the overbearing push of sleep itself, Alex hurried to the sphere station, apparently the last one out before lights out, and quickly picked Olympus Heights. He hadn’t seen his Droogs since he entered the store, so he hoped they were already there or at least on their way. A guard at the entrance gave Alex the key to his Mercury Suites apartment, on the second floor, west side.  
When Alex unlocked the door and stepped through, he was almost immediately taken aback. The whole apartment had been painted almost exactly like how it was at his old house on the surface. Except now, he had the entire space to himself instead of sharing it with his Pee and Em. A rather lonely thought to think about, but it was still enjoyable. Better still, his bedroom was arranged verbatim to its surface counterpart, albeit with the one window, with his iconic Beethoven-themed curtain, tinted dark teal by the ocean outside. What caught Alex’s attention as he set down the bag next to his electric turntable and opened the pneumo tube, was a package, neatly wrapped and tied with a bow. Picking up the card within the ribbon, he read it silently, “To my first new apprentice, here is your starting monthly check. I’m paying you in advance because you look like a student full of potential. Don’t waste it! I even threw in a little consolation as well; your friends should have the same. Tonight’s play only scratched the surface, but tomorrow we shall dig deeper! Don’t let me down, little moth. – S.C.”. Then Alex unwrapped what turned out to be a cardboard box, inside of which were an envelope with a check inside indeed written in the name of Sander Cohen, issuing $700; a glowing red bottle labeled “Incinerate”, a huge, though sterile syringe, and another bottle with a label of a blue apple on it and full of a bizarre blue luminescent fluid. The bottles were numerically labeled, indicating red had to be injected before blue.  
“What are these oddy-knocky thingies?” Alex thought slowly to himself. How would these help his performance on stage? Were they the Plasmids Mr. Van Meyers spoke of?  
Finally, Alex looked at the alarm clock next to his bed, and decided to put these thoughts aside until tomorrow. Dressing out of his fairly dirty clothes, he took a brief shower, brushed his teeth, and switched into a comfortable set of pajamas. For the pièce de résistance, Alex slid the Beethoven record out of its sleeve, set it gently into place on the turntable, turned it on at the flick of a switch, and set the needle gingerly on the starting grooves of the record. Lying back on the bed, the starting notes of the 9th brought of a smile to his face yet again. This was the best move he’d ever made. And to think, all of it for a ruse, but then again, why? Everything was so comfortable, so familiar, so pleasant, so...convenient, why would he need to continue his old habits?  
Then he thought just before dozing off, “Maybe that...Plasmid holds the answer.”

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the film of A Clockwork Orange  
> * Note: Nadsat dictionary used for various words. http://soomka.com/nadsat.html


End file.
